Scooter Chronicles

And boy was it a classic! She defeated fellow American Lindsay Davenport 4-6, 7-6 (4), 9-7. Both women deserved to win this match. It started later then normal, due to the last mens’ semifinal match (between Roddick and Johansson, which Roddick won). It also turned out to be the longest womens’ final in Wimbledon history, taking almost three hours to complete.

Things started out quickly for Davenport, and before anyone knew it, she had broken Venus’ serve twice and was up 5-2 in the first. But then Venus fought back with to love games, showing that she wasn’t going to roll over. Davenport served out the set, but you could see the seething determination in Venus’ eyes.

The second set went according to plan with both winning their service games. At 5-5 however, Davenport broke Venus again, and found herself serving for the championship. Venus though broke back and in convincing form, sending the second set to a tiebreaker. Venus quickly got up in the tiebreaker, though Lindsay started to come back, it wasn’t enough. Venus tied the match at a set a piece.

The third set again kept the players on serve, or when Lindsay broke, Venus would break back the following game. Even an injury time out for Lindsay, having lower back pain couldn’t stop the back and forth action. But soon it caught up to Venus and Lindsay found herself at Championship Point, leading 6-5 in the third set. But Venus sent the game back to Deuce, then eventually took the game, tying the set at 6. Finally the breaks came Venus’ way and she took the last set 9-7 (Wimbledon rules are to play out the final set, instead of using a tiebreaker).

Venus could not hide her emotion, jumping up and down continually, even while holding the famous Rosewater dish for pictures. Being the 14th seed of the tourney, she became the lowest seed to win the womens’ final at Wimbledon. Since winning back to back titles in 2000 and 2001, then losing the next two years in the final to her sister Serena, Venus has been tumbling down the world rankings. On top of that, the murder of their sister a couple of years ago, Venus had admitted that just seeing the sun come up makes it a good day, let alone winning Wimbledon again.

Congratulations to Venus and Lindsay for giving it their all and making this year’s Wimbledon final one for the ages. And mostly congratulations to Venus on winning her third Wimbledon and fifth Grand Slam title.